The purely emotional form of Pietism is, as Ritschl has pointed out, a religious dilettantism for the leisure class.

In a democracy the people choose a leader in whom they trust. Then the chosen leader says, 'Now shut up and obey me.' People and party are then no longer free to interfere in his business.

The decisive means for politics is violence.

The fate of our times is characterized by rationalization and intellectualization and, above all, by the disenchantment of the world.

A government is an institution that holds a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence.

Politics means striving to share power or striving to influence the distribution of power, either among states or among groups within a state.

Nothing is worthy of man as man unless he can pursue it with passionate devotion.

All knowledge of cultural reality, as may be seen, is always knowledge from particular points of view.

Power is the chance to impose your will within a social context, even when opposed and regardless of the integrity of that chance.

Man does not by nature wish to earn more and more money.

It is not true that good can follow only from good and evil only from evil, but that often the opposite is true.

Living your life is a long and doggy business. . . . And stories and books help. Some help you with the living itself. Some help you just take a break. The best do both at the same time.

Your most important fight will be the ones that you knew knew couldn't win but you fought as hard as you could anyway.

They've been stepping on my toes for years. It's just a reason to get new boots.

In religion as in parenthood, uncritical loyalty to our ancestors may implicate us in an injustice against our descendants: imprisoning them in the errors of our ancestors.

Are you really angry, or simply aware of anger in the body and mind? Don't speculate, simply look at what is there.

My own definition of leadership is this: The capacity and the will to rally men and women to a common purpose and the character which inspires confidence.

There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke. But you and I, we've been through that, and this is not our fate, so let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late.

For this is what America is all about. It is the uncrossed desert and the unclimbed ridge. It is the star that is not reached and the harvest that is sleeping in the unplowed ground.

Sometimes, you know, you have to cause trouble to end trouble.

I mean, yeah, Anne Fletcher was a choreographer, but she was born to be a director. You need to have the ability to figure out people's rhythms. It all starts from the script.